[REPORT] Altimeter Identifies 5 Use Cases for Social Media Management

Just today, Altimeter released a report, “A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation.” At a very high level, the report describes the current state of social media tools, accounts and channels being managed (and in many cases, not managed) within the organization.

More specifically, what I found interesting are the five use cases that Altimeter identified for social media management. The use cases are also opportunities for companies that are unsure of how to use social media to connect with customers. They are the following (descriptions are in my words):

Intense Engagement: The social customer is highly influential. A quick review of the recent events with Netflix, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless prove that social customers are forcing business to change. Much of that change involves engaging in two way dialogue i.e. solving customer service challenges, engaging with influencers and advocates, managing online crisis, or just listening to the vibe of the conversation.

Social Broadcasting: While I don’t necessarily agree with the term “broadcasting”, having one central CMS to post to multiple social channels is certainly a scalable advantage. Many of the platform vendors listed below all have similar capabilities like the ability to schedule posts, real time analytics and a content library, which is good for global teams.

Platform Campaign Marketing: The ability to customize a Facebook experience is excellent, especially for product launches and marketing campaigns. Many of the vendors listed below allow users to create customized Facebook tabs that can house various content buckets like RSS feeds, images, videos, contests, etc.

Distributed Brand Presence: For companies that have multiple teams globally, in various geographies and in different languages (also a franchise), governance should be a focal point with customer engagement. Vendors like Hearsay Social, Spredfast and Sprinklr have built in compliance capabilities that allow for content to be approved prior to being published.

Tailored Customizations: There are many companies that have internal CRM systems that require very specific customization to bridge the gap between external social data and internal customer data. Having a vendor not only with open APIs but the ability to customize their product is important.

The following is a matrix of the social media management systems/vendors in the report broken down by capabilities of the above criteria and their ability to support small business or the enterprise.

Other interesting findings from the Altimeter Study include:

While 70% of respondents said that their social media programs map to overall business objectives; only 43% of them have a documented plan of record

Only 26% of respondents offer social media training and educational services to employees

Here is the full report for you to read, download, embed, print and share.

Michael Brito has been making things happen online since 1996 with a legit hustle. He gets mad when the 49ers lose, really mad. Feel free to follow him on Twitter.

http://www.bilal.ca/ Bilal Jaffery

Agreed. The buzzword before that was #e20, #enterprise20 (which referred to much of the social business design that we discuss). For the mainstream audience (outside of our realm), I have started to use Social Media along with Enterprise 2.0 (for search/recruitment etc)

http://www.britopian.com Michael Brito

It looks to me like they display the same results. Do you see something different?

http://www.britopian.com Michael Brito

Good point Bilal! Waiting on that post, btw! : )

http://flavors.me/40deuce 40deuce

Cool analysis and I’m glad that you were able to use Sysomos to do it!

Cheers,
Sheldon, community manager for Sysomos

http://www.britopian.com Michael Brito

The tool rocks! So happy with it. Thank you.

http://www.bilal.ca/ Bilal Jaffery

Oh yes, you shall receive one shortly. Sir. =)

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